Undocumented Promise Leads to Four-Day Court Battle

Making a verbal family agreement over the distribution of one's estate and then trusting that everything will be sorted out amicably by the family shows a very considerable degree of optimism, as a recent case illustrates.

It involved yet another family feud which led to a court appearance because verbal promises given by a farmer father to his son were not made good by the creation of the appropriate documentation.

In the 1970s, the farmer had asked his then 17-year-old son to abandon his ambition to become a policeman in order to help run the family farm. This he did, and he continued to farm the land for 13 years after his father died in 1999.

When his father died, the terms of his will were not made fully known to the family, but it provided that, on the death of his widow, the farm should be able to be farmed by the son until age 60 and then sold with the proceeds divided among the couple's children.

When he reached his 60th birthday, the terms of the will were revealed and the dispute commenced.

The son who had remained on the farm claimed that his father had promised that he would inherit it, and he had worked for more than 20 years on very low wages based on that promise.

The family denied that any such promise had been made and the end result was a four-day court hearing involving accusations and counter-accusations.

There are several steps you can take to make it less likely that the division of your estate will be contested. These include having a clear will and, if possible, making sure that those who have expectations of an inheritance and your executors are aware of its contents. If you wish to make any variation to your arrangements, these should be evidenced properly.

The contents of this article are intended for general information purposes only and shall not be deemed to be, or constitute legal advice. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss as a result of acts or omissions taken in respect of this article.

News

Glanvilles are proud to have supported the Great Legal Bake Day on 13th February 2018, in aid of the Sussex Legal Services charity. Over our three offices based in Chichester, West Sussex, and Fareham and Havant, Hampshire, we...

News

Failing to pay taxes due because of insufficiency of funds with which to do so has repeatedly been challenged by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) when a defaulting taxpayer has sought to claim it is a 'reasonable excuse' for non-payment. Where such an excuse...

news

One of the issues that proves difficult for executors of deceased persons who have Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) is that the interest on them is taxable once the owner has died. Many of these accounts are small and, given that interest rates have been...